Patna, Nov. 27: BJP veteran and the party’s Hindi heartland strategist Keshari Nath Tripathi today said he would advise and guide the Bihar government wherever required so that the state fulfils the expectations of people.

Octogenarian Tripathi, the Bengal governor, was today sworn in as the 35th governor of Bihar by Patna High Court Chief Justice Rekha M. Doshit at Raj Bhavan. He will hold the additional charge of Bihar after the tenure of D.Y. Patil ended on November 26.

Tripathi will be the second senior BJP leader having an RSS background to assume the office of Raj Bhavan here after late Sunder Singh Bhandari. Tripathi’s remark on cooperating with the state government assumes importance, as during the tenure of Bhandari, there was a stiff relation between Raj Bhavan and the state government led by Rabri Devi then. Bhandari, who was governor of Bihar from April 1998 till March 1999, used to face hard time working in Bihar as the then RJD government and more particularly Lalu Prasad had protested Bhandari’s appointment claiming “Raj Bhavan becoming a centre of conspiracy and the man occupying the building should stop acting as an RSS agent”.

More recently, the relationship between the Nitish Kumar government and former governor Devanand Konwar went cold over the appointment of vice-chancellors and bills related to functioning of state universities.

Asked whether he would face challenge working in Bengal and Bihar where the state governments are against the BJP party policies, Tripathi said: “At present, I am not facing any problem in Bengal, as the role of a governor is limited and also a governor is not expected to do politics from Raj Bhavan.”

The bonhomie of Tripathi was also reflected at breakfast after the oath ceremony as he not only talked with chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi but also interacted with handful of cabinet ministers.

Barring a few JDU ministers and RJD legislature party leader in the Assembly, Abdul Bari Siddiqui, there were no MLAs from the JDU, RJD and Congress camp. However, the BJP members were in full strength — right from senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, Nand Kishore Yadav to bottom line party functionaries.